DRL FY2022: Ensuring Freedom of Expression for Vulnerable and Marginalized Populations Responding to Anti-Rights Efforts and Targeted Attacks

The U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) invites civil society organizations (CSOs) to submit applications for projects that have the goal to promote and protect Freedom of Expression (FoE) for vulnerable or marginalized populations. The focus should include women and girls in all their diversity; LGBTQI+ persons, transgender or gender-diverse persons in particular; migrants; members of marginalized racial, ethnic, and Indigenous communities, religious minority group members; and others targeted by anti-rights actors. These actors deploy targeted threats and instrumentalized stigma against such groups in order to chill freedom of speech and limit democratic participation, leading to the erosion of democratic institutions, rule of law, access to justice, and fundamental freedoms of expression, assembly, and association (e.g. creating and disseminating disinformation in order to pass legislation that is discriminatory in intent or impact; repeatedly targeting civil society organizations working for the human rights of vulnerable populations with strategic lawsuits against public participation, etc.)